|
|
Individuality
The Pentagon Pyramid
by PGR
Nair
"Gems cannot be polished without
friction, nor a man perfected without trials"
 I
was a good swimmer in my school days. I used to swim and
float for hours in a temple pond in our village. Somehow, I
didn't pursue this good habit later on. When I was working
as a Process Engineer in FACT, I once went for a picnic
along with my friends to the famous Athirampally waterfalls
in Kerala. There was a small irrigation canal nearby,
leading to a dam shutter. We saw some people swimming there
in the canal. Out of sheer enthusiasm and confidence of
being a good swimmer in my yester years, I jumped into that
canal. Within seconds I realized that there was something
wrong with the strokes I was making. My legs and hands were
not moving in unison. I felt as if I was a beginner. A gulp
of water and fear gripped my soul. Luckily, I saw some
concrete steps reaching into the canal on one side. I
mustered all my energy in that direction and made a
miraculous escape. When I sat there on the steps, panting
like a dog, I realized the naked meaning of an important
trait and that is Practice.
This is the first face of my
pyramid.
My lack of practice had rusted my faculties as a swimmer.
Practice is the pruning knife that
rids us of projections in our performance abilities. This
applies to practice in all arenas of our activities.
Practice empowers us with one important faculty and that is
control. It is this control that helps us to always stay in
the right track. Like the basket ball player Ed Macauley
said, “When you are not practicing, remember, someone
somewhere is practicing, and when you meet him he will win”.
What is important in practice is that it should be done in
the proper way. I had a friend who got fed up of reading
that smoking was injurious to health that he quit the
practice of reading. If you practice an art or a skill, be
proud of it and make it proud of you. It may break your
heart, but it will fill your heart before it breaks it; it
will make you a person in your own right.
Proverb says, "He freezes who does not burn" and that speaks
about the second face of my pyramid, i.e. "Passion". A man
should effuse passion from every pore of him to enjoy life's
most imperceptible fragrances to the full, enormous taste of
its heaviest fruits. Passion is the tinder that ignites
action. A man without passion is spiritually dead. He has no
glow or spark within him. Do you know how peasants buy
cattle? They simply lift the tail, and the effect is
miraculous. Those who have no mettle in them offer no
resistance. But those who have mettle jump at them in
protest. The peasants choose the latter. Similarly, those
who have no grit and passion within them are like rice
soaked in milk, soft and cringing. No strength within! No
capacity for sustained effort! No power of will. They become
failures in life. Water becomes steam with the difference of
only one-degree C in temperature. Passion is that steam that
propels us to climb any cliff and even go beyond it.
Vittas Gerulatis, the renowned Tennis player suffered defeat
at the hands of Bjorn Borg thirteen times in a row. On the
fourteenth time Vitas Gerulatis won the match. As often that
happens on occasions such as this, the whole TV and press
crew gathered around him. A journalist faced him with the
usual question - "Yes, how do you feel Vittas"? There came
the classic reply. "Nobody can beat Vittas Gerulatis 14
times in row". This reveals the true sheen of the third face
of my pyramid and that is – "Persistence".
If Columbus had turned back, nobody would have blamed him.
Nobody would have remembered him either. The prices of life
are at the end of each journey, not near the beginning. We
all must persist until we succeed. In for a penny, in for a
pound, that should be our attitude in all our enterprises.
The fourth aspect of my pyramid is about the miracle of
Chinese bamboo tree. After the seed for this amazing tree is
planted, you see nothing, believe me, absolutely nothing,
for four years except for a tiny shoot coming out of a bulb.
During those four years, all the growth is underground. It
develops massive, fibrous root structure that spreads deep
and wide in the earth. But then in the fifth year, the
Chinese bamboo tree grows up to eight feet. This is the
miracle of the Chinese bamboo tree.
Many things in our lives are like the Chinese bamboo tree.
You work and you invest time and effort, and you do
everything you can do to nurture growth and sometimes you
don't see any progress for weeks, months or even for years.
But, if you are patient and stead fast, keep working and
nurturing, that "fifth year" will come and you will be
astonished at the growth and change you see taking place.
Everything in life is gestation and birthing. We all have to
wait, may be hours or even years, with deep humility and
patience until each impression, each embryo of our
experience brings forth a new clarity. As the great German
Poet Rilke Says "Being an artist means ripening like a tree,
which does not force its sap and stands confidently in the
storms of spring, not afraid that afterward summer may not
come. It does come. But it comes only to those who are
patient, who are there as if eternity lay before them, so
unconcernedly silent and vast." Patience is everything!
The last aspect of my Pyramid has something to do with the
saying; "You catch more flies with honey". The quality I am
referring to is Politeness. When you are gentle, people are
drawn to you like "flies to honey". They will even condone
your mistakes and their comments about you will always be
positive. When you are acting pushy, you are virtually
pushing people away. In the process, you are inducing more
stress and strain on yourself.
Politeness to me, is manliness without ostentation. It is
keeping serenity of your temper even in the most trying
circumstances. It is admitting your mistakes with humility.
I would like to share with you a fable. Late one night a
blind man was about to go home after visiting a friend.
"Please", he said to his friend, "May I take your lantern
with me?" . "Why carry a lantern?" asked his friend, “you
won't see any better with it". "No", said the blind one,
"Perhaps not, but others will see me better, and not bump
into me". Off went the blind man with the lantern, and
before he had gone more than a few yards, crack! Someone
walked right into him. The blind man was upset. "Why don't
you look out"? he asked- "Why don't you see my lantern?". "
Why don't you light the lantern"?, yelled the other. People
who are impolite and unserious are like the young man who
recklessly run into the blind and yet command him to light
the lantern without offering any apologies. People who are
polite show true reverence and respect to one another and
acknowledge their love and humility to fellow human beings.
Craftiness and duplicity are unknown to them. Learn to be
polite and attract flies wherever you go.
My intention in fabricating this pentagon pyramid was to
illuminate its sides in its true light. May be these sides
will support us to have a strong foothold in our lives and
help us to climb the pyramid, which is life itself, with
considerable ease and confidence. May be, it can stimulate a
qualitative change in our way of life.
When your steps falter, think of these inspiring words of
Ogmandino "I was not delivered into this world in defeat nor
does failure course in my veins. I am not a sheep waiting to
be prodded by my shepherd. I am a lion and I refuse to talk,
to walk, and to sleep with the sheep. I will hear not those
who weep and complain, for their disease is contagious. Let
them join the sheep. The slaughterhouse of failure is not my
destiny".
Image under license with
Gettyimages.com
Top
|
|
